1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to record players, and more particularly to manual and automatic return record players.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Record players have been manufactured for many years and fall into three general categories, namely, manual players, automatic players, and changers. Manual players have generally been used by high fidelity enthusiasts because they have fewer moving parts and consequently can provide more faithful reproduction; however, many people object to players not automatically shutting off and returning the tone arm to the rest post. Changers that stack and automatically play a number of records in sequence are very convenient to operate but the changing mechanism is quite complex, and can be relatively costly. Automatic record players that automatically play a single record, one or a multiple number of times and then return the tone arm to the rest post have become popular because they avoid much of the inconvenience of a manual player while eliminating much of the complexity associated with changers. Examples of such an automatic player is disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 732,242, filed May 8, 1985. However, while the prior art record players have achieved a considerable amount of simplification over record changers there is still a need to simplify their construction to achieve better reliability and performance at lower cost. In particular, there is a need to simplify the tone arm returning mechanism and the tone arm mount.